Taylor Swift — Girl to Genius
Introduction
Western music was always present in my life since childhood, but it was never my endeavor, till Covid-19 pandemic came on and shut the entire world inside their homes. The pandemic changed many lives and livelihoods, and I did not remain untouched as it made me subscribe to apple music, for the first ever time as music comforted me, and took the place of all the social activities I was missing. But I thought I would get rid of it once the pandemic gave way to normal life. But it never happened, as I fell in love with it immensely and hence this article.
Taylor Swift
Nicknamed by many Twitteratis as ‘Tay Tay’, I felt Taylor Swift’s first presence, when I heard her song, ‘Tim McGraw’ from self- named album, ‘Taylor Swift’. It might be 2009 or 2010, I am not sure about it. I did not know her name and I did not make any effort to get to know her name at that time, as it was my daughter who was into western music and my job was merely to buy her iPods and music CDs.
But things changed when we moved to California and that was when I started to focus on my daughter’s digital activities up close, as it was a new place and she had near to no friends. One of the significant changes I noticed was her move from Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj to BTS. I started investigating the reasons and that was when I listened to Swift’s ‘Shake it off’ from album, ‘1989’. It was mesmerizing, a perfect song for a dance night and then I stopped my investigations and started being smart. One of the initial developments was to follow Taylor on Facebook. Since then, Taylor Swift has brought ample amount of Pop music into my home and my life.
Taylor Swift’s Best songs
Taylor swift is about a decade junior to me when it comes to age. Besides being this gorgeous blond-haired beauty with the perfect figure of a show girl, it is one of the least attributes she is noticed for, as her songs are explicitly genuine, and her voice is mesmerizing. Her ability to capture her fans' fullest attention with her songs is incredible and worth applauding.
For me, her best albums are ‘Fearless (Taylor’s version) and Folklore’. Though most of her songs target the young teenage audience, I can always find one or two songs in every album, which sends some wide advice for older adults too, which is her real specialty.
I recently read ‘Merrick Garland’, the attorney general of United States, mentioning that he became a fan of Taylor Swift, because of his two daughters and I immediately knew that this was how she captures the attention of her older audience, after gaining them through their offspring. Whether it is ‘Karma’ in her ‘Midnights’ or the ‘The Lucky one’ in her ‘Red’, or ‘Mr. Perfectly Fine’ in ‘Fearless’, there is a subtle but fine message about life and its ups and downs, reserved for her older audience.
As per my opinion, she excelled with her song, ‘Hoax’ bringing the enormity of loss and regret in the lyrics, while keeping her pitch and tone filled with melancholy. Her girl-like persona is so evident when he sings ‘Enchanted’ in her album ‘Speak Now’, where she beautifully brings out the picture of ‘Love at first sight’. ‘Clean’ from her album ‘1989’ is another song with which she reaches out to the adult audience where she discusses the problem of addiction, The struggle to get clean was splendidly and candidly expressed, and most of us can identify with that song clearly because everyone of us might have experienced addiction to something or someone, in our life and struggle to get clean.
Taylor Swift’s Identity as a musical extravagant
I have always appreciated Taylor Swift’s ability to identify as both genders in most of her songs. The idea is made explicit in a few of her songs, which I like the most.
‘End Game’ in album ‘Reputation’, which she co-wrote with Ed Sheeran, and three others, where her lyrics are clear about the romantic tension between the two lovers, who wants to be each other’s final act. Though she paired with two other male singers in this song, her ability to do it alone is obvious throughout the lyrics.
‘Peace’ from ‘Folklore’, which she co-wrote with Aaron Dessner, where she depicts the feelings of a man who is deeply in love with an unwilling woman as she sings,
"I talk shit with my friends and It’s like wasting your honor”.
The depth of love is so overwhelming, he explodes saying,
“I would die for you in secret”.
‘The Man’ from album, ‘Lover’, co -written by Joel Little, where she sings,
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man”
emphasizing,
“because if I was a man, then I’d be the man”,
without a second of hesitation about any idea on changing her gender, as she expresses her willingness to embrace the identity she was born with, stretching her feminine self above and beyond.
Taylor Swift — The Storyteller
Folklore is not the only album where Swifties get the kick of Taylor’s story telling ability. Every one of her songs tells a story, whether the subject is romance, breakup or true tough life. To give a taster, I can mention a few-
Her ‘Message in a bottle’ is yet another obvious re-mix album where she has stretched her writing skills to spin a beautiful romantic story, when she sings, ‘You could be the one that I keep and I could be the reason you can’t sleep at night’ and then continues to enquire, ‘How is it in London? Where were you while I’m wondering, If I’ll ever see you again?’
‘Question’ in her album ‘Midnights’ talks about insecurities as a story, which is more prominent when someone is in love, than ever. The idea of rejection in love is unbearable, though many would have experienced it at some point or other in their life. Yet it is painful, every time and so when it comes to ‘Love and Romance’, most of us try to play it safe.
The same is evident in ‘Labyrinth’ in ‘Midnights’, the level to which a person can go to please each other, when she sings, ’It only feels this raw right now, Lost in the labyrinth of my mind, Break up, break free, break through, break down, You would break your back to make me break a smile’.
While ‘Gorgeous’ in ‘Reputation’ tells the story of a gorgeous young woman asking a man on a date, claiming that ‘He is gorgeous’ and ‘there’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have’, Guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats alone unless you want to come along’.
And ‘Superstar’ in ‘Fearless’, tells the story of a young girl who falls in love with her ‘Superstar’ celebrity, when she sings, ‘You smile that beautiful smile and all the girls in the front row, Scream your name’ and requesting him for his photograph to be used as a wallpaper, singing, ‘So dim that spotlight, tell me things like, I can’t keep my eyes off of you’.
In all the above songs, Taylor Swift’s ingenuity is overtly obvious and her ability to express the emotions so vividly is spectacular.
Taylor Swift — The Performer
As someone who migrated from Indian classical and light music, western music albums are exquisite to me, as they bring out the performer side of the artist, along with their writing and singing abilities. Taylor Swift’s acting in her video albums is so effortless, it is as if she is not doing a job, but living a dream for which she was born to. Her music videos are created responsibly, with her audience in mind and hence always rated PG- 13.
Eras Tour — The best of it all
The girl who started as a copy with her song ‘ Tim McGraw’, has grown in to this epic personality in a matter of 15 years, as she climbs this tour stage, show after show, city after city, wearing these wonderful costumes, with her group of dancers and singers, performing her best , while truly and emotionally connecting with her audience, Taylor has finally grown into a genius woman, many Americans can connect with during her Eras tour.
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Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras tour’ depicts her 17 years of music career starting from ‘The Lover Era’ , ‘The Fearless Era’, ‘The Evermore Era’, ‘The Reputation Era’ , ‘The Speak now Era’, ‘The Red Era’, ‘The folklore Era’, ‘The 1989 Era’ and finally the ‘The Midnights Era’, celebrating 10 of her famous albums, two of them already rerecorded as Taylor’s version. Every person who witnessed this marvelous act of Taylor Swift describes the whole experience as profound and compelling. The set on the stage is so elaborate that it transports the audience to ten different sites within three hours. As per many of her fans, this tour has been the best of all the tours.
Eras Tour — Sets and Stages
The set was the best part of the tour, which is making it an immense success, as the stadium is divided into three distinct parts — Main stage, Diamond stage and a Catwalk stage.
She and her team bring in her albums live effortlessly on the stage, one after the other, enabling her to transcend into the next set featuring the next era, depicted by her albums. I heard one of her fans say,
“I do not know, how Taylor Swift does this. She did not a break a sweat during the entire three-hour performance, even with all those glitters, jewels and shimmering tight clothes, she was wearing”.
Another person added while exclaiming,
“She looks bold, strong and fearless”.
The best set was the Evermore set is for ‘Evermore Era’, where Taylor swoons over a moss covered piano, as the massive oak like tree fills the stage, bringing the Florian wood into a reality.
Another set worth mentioning is the set depicting, ‘Speak Now’ Era. Though swift performs only one song from this album {‘Enchanted’, which is one of my favorite songs in that album}, the stage turns into this lavender haze, depicting the symbols of democracy, ‘authority and freedom’, while being in the soft glow of love.
The final word goes to the ‘Folklore set’ which is pictured as a cabin. Swift sits so comfortably and sings six songs, (‘Cardigan’ and ‘Invisible string’ are my favs) from the album which contains sixteen songs, as if she is all alone, without minding the 60,000 people watching her and applauding her.
Throughout her performance she fills the shoes of three categories of women,
‘The next-door girl’ with her innocent looks,
‘The cover girl’ with her proud looks accented by her success and
‘The show girl’ with her splendid effort to go up on stage and capture the hearts of her fans, and connect with them, physically and emotionally, in every city.
Eras Tour — Costumes
Her costume during the entire performance depicts brilliant designs and fashion brought to life. Some of my favorites are
Bodice, glittery grey and black blazer from Versace (Lover era),
The gold fringe dress, short and long of Roberto Cavalli,
The Princess gown by Nicole and Felicia,
Pink Ball gown by Zuhair Murad (Speak Now Era),
Ballgown by Elie Saab (Speak Now era),
The yellow long slitted dress for the performance of ‘Willow’ (Evermore era),
The one long legged cat suit with patterns resembling snakes by Cavalli again (Reputation era).
Other notable costumes are — ‘Taylor Swift -22' music video where she wears a look of a hipster with her Ashish T- shirt paired with Christian Louboutin loafers and Gladys Tamez hat. The show attendees cannot fail to notice the Missing ‘Not’ from her T — shirt slogan, ‘Not a lot going on at the moment’, while she sings the songs from her album ‘Red’, which was her first solo written album.
Her other looks included Robert Cavalli, glittery top and short skirt, a red long layered dress by Jessica Jones, a short mauve dress embellished with sequins by Oscar De la Renta, accessorized with a lavender shaggy furry coat. Also, a navy blue embellished short spaghetti strap dress by Oscar De la Renta accessorized with Christin Louboutin same-colored embellished knee-high boots with kitten heels. The best of the body suits she wore was Versace’s which glittered in gold and blue sequins accompanied by same colored embellished Louboutin boots. The cream and pink colored Alberta ferrety gown makes her look like a fairy tale princess, in every show she wears them, granting the fabulous, breathtaking, surpassingly rare, entranced feeling to every attendee, as the show ends.
Conclusion
As an exquisite fan of Taylor Swift, in my forties, I have fallen head over heels for this gorgeous young woman and her talents. But I know that I have not done any justice to her name or her current tour, with my two thousand words. Hence to pay tribute to her lyrics, I am deliberately using the words from one of her songs, which caught my attention in the album ‘Folklore’, to conclude.
Taylor Swift has shown me that colorful side of Pop music, using her secret language of costumes, lyrics, and performance, which I could not have seen with anyone else. Though I cannot call myself one of those Swifties, who would ruin themselves for her, a million little times, I can adore her for evermore, for the wonderful intro she gave me into this dwindling mercurial world of Western Music.
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